This chapter has been kicking my ass all over the yard, and without ScienceofObsession and Snogandagrope to back me up, and wrestle me into coherency and continuity, it still would be. They've propped me up so much, in fact, (and bow down to their endless patience and ability to pick nits) that I've even been spoon-fed dialogue. (You may thank Science for the "dumb pants" bit). Also, I just want you all to know that these new (long) chapters that end with cliffies are pretty much Science's fault. There... now you know. Well, actually, this one is cut in half. But it's still a cliffie. Hopefully I'll pound the second half into submission within a week.
Chapter 14: Denial and Rage
"We've found your sister's body. We need you to come down and give us a positive ID."
John's world shrinks to a pinprick, bright and painful like a wound. Any warmth leeches instantly out of the flat, and he meticulously rearranges his feet, so that they are exactly shoulder-width apart, toes precisely aligned at the border of the shadow cast by the coffee table. He sets the cooling flannel, rusty with Sherlock's blood, carefully down and takes a deep breath.
"Excuse me?" he says tightly.
The man on the phone clears his throat, and both discomfiture and apology bleed through in his tone. "We've found your sister's body, sir. Outside a club near the Canning Town docks. Can you meet us at the morgue to identify it? I mean... her. Can you come identify her?"
John mechanically takes note of the address: Barts. Of course it's Barts. He disconnects the call and sinks back down to the sofa.
Sherlock is very still next to him. His fingers are pressed together against his lips, no longer kinetic. He turns his head a little and looks at John sidelong through arctic eyes. "Your sister?" he rumbles. He's clearly heard part of the conversation.
John nods numbly. "He said they found her... They found her..." He takes in a frantic breath. "I didn't even ask, Sherlock. I forgot to ask what-" There's a tremor in his hand, and he traps it against his thigh with the other.
Sherlock makes a humming sound and twists around; his fingers resume flicking. He is still pale, and his face shines with the shock of discovering the lamp was stolen. But John can't be arsed with sympathy for Sherlock and his lamp: right now, he's just trying to breathe.
An instant later Sherlock leaps to his feet, stepping up and over the coffee table to pace agitatedly. "This cannot be coincidence, John. These three events... four events... must be linked."
John nods again, barely hearing.
Harry. Oh, christ, Harry.
He sits with his elbows planted on his knees, wrists limp, head hanging down, staring blindly at his shoes. His stomach churns and the acid presence of bile rises in the back of his throat. Harry can't be... gone. She's all he had left in the world, such sodality as that may have offered. The last of his family snuffed out, no more than a brash flame in a windstorm. He is unanchored, and sorrow crashes over him in waves, visceral and crushing.
Dead. Not only dead, but murdered. Oh, god. Did it hurt? Was she scared? Did she die fast or slow? How could he not have asked? He's been in the war long enough, a doctor long enough, to be able to imagine many gruesome scenarios, and he aches at the thought. No one deserves that. And, oh, especially not his big sister; regardless of her many grievous flaws.
He scrubs his hands across his face, pressing hard on his eyes, willing the stinging prickle behind his lids to recede. The whole front of his face burns with the need to cry; it is a feeling familiar from his nightmares, and he fights it down with the same stoic determination. He sucks in a choked gasp, a shuddering breath that is not a sob. Is this his first breath since the phone call? Possibly. Probably.
What had she been doing? He hadn't even asked. Outside the club, the Inspector had said. Was she out for a smoke? Had she started another fight? Harry was pugnacious at best, when that intoxicated. At worst, she was as indiscriminately violent as their father had been.
It crosses John's mind, razor-edged in guilt, that he had thought more than once that she might end up like this; paying for her addiction in coin other than the tatters of her marriage, and he's stricken to realize that he's glad it wasn't a car accident, that there are no innocents involved. Harry has always been destined to go down in flames; he's lectured her about it for years.
John castigates himself over the occasional hope in the past that something bad would happen; just damaging enough to make her want to clean up. He'd wished, a formless desire, taboo and unspoken, that she'd be in a smashup where she'd be sufficiently hurt to stay in hospital long enough to detox. Or that she'd get a jail stint more severe than overnight. He'd even considered that a mugging, as she staggered the streets late at night, would serve.
Just... an event that would teach her something.
But he'd never wanted this.
If he'd stayed at the club... If only he hadn't stormed off, disgusted with her behavior... If he'd been there, could she be alive right now? Drunk and obnoxious, yes, but breathing? Could he have prevented it? This kind of thought is unhealthy, he knows, but is also aware that it will haunt him forever. He left her there, both of them angry, and now she'll never come home. He digs his fingernails into the wrist of his shaking hand, tries to ground himself. Wants to punish himself. His toes curl inside his heavy boots.
Sherlock's muttering runs over him like static, the occasional word breaking through: 'Moriarty', 'kidnapping', 'murder'. Jesus.
Sherlock's pacing is infuriating, his self-absorption deeply repugnant, his very presence in the room an affront. "Shut up," John hisses. John's skin is so thin he's nothing but a raw, agonized nerve. He leaps to his feet, skin crawling. "Shut. Up." He moves so that he is in the way when Sherlock reaches the arc of his pacing.
Sherlock still wears his coat, and it wings open at his sudden stop, inches from crashing into John, revealing an unexpected stripe of skin, bone-pale and vulgar with nascent bruising. Sherlock's wild eyes drill into John, and he looms close, clasping John's shoulders loosely between his hands. Bare toes press up against the sides of John's boots.
"John."
John snarls at him, and knocks his hands away with more force than necessary.
Sherlock's eyes flicker across him in a disjointed, thoughtful kind of way, but then glue themselves back to John's, chalcedony and bright. "This must be connected, John. A break-in, the theft of my lamp, attempted kidnapping and now murdering your sister - that strains probability."
John chokes when Sherlock casually includes murdering your sister with his list of events.
"It. Must be. Connected," John repeats, through tightly clenched teeth. He leans forward aggressively, shoves his face up into Sherlock's space, and feels satisfaction when Sherlock falters, hums with malicious pleasure at the confusion that momentarily clouds his expression.
"John?" Sherlock sounds puzzled and nervous.
John steps forward, forcing Sherlock's retreat, crowds in until they are chest to chest with Sherlock backed up against the desk. "You're saying that my sister is dead-" he seizes Sherlock just above his elbows and viciously constricts his grip. He wants to leave red marks. He wants to leave bruises. He wants to crush those narrow bones into grit. He shakes the genie, and he's growling like an animal. "She's dead... because of you? Because of your fucking lamp?"
Sherlock's eyes are very wide, and colorless now. There is no color to him at all. Even the henna is gray. "Yes," he says. "I don't think it was coincidence. She was a... tool. A means to an end.
"But John. John. I know you've thought something like this would eventually happen. And you didn't even like her. Not for years. It's part of the plan to get the lamp. It's only logical-"
John shouts, no words, just an brutish explosion of denial and rage, and he flings Sherlock away so hard that he has to scrabble at the desk to remain upright; and John lifts his arm, clenching his fist.
Sherlock recoils, throws his own arm up in front of his face, and tucks his head behind his hunched shoulder.
This is the man who took on five others earlier in the night, with fierce joy and no fear.
Cowering on a desk.
They remain, a frozen tableau, for shatterable, crystalline seconds, and John suddenly perceives himself as an observer might, and is suffused with shame and disgust. Stiffly, he uncurls his fingers; the muscles of his arm feel balky and old. "She is my sister, you bastard. My sister. You think that's the same as losing a bloody lamp?"
Sherlock lowers his own arm, but remains canted over the desk. His eyes are blown wide, but nothing moves except his chest, pumping panted air through open lips. "I know it isn't," he says softly, at last.
John turns away, and he's drained. He's rubbery and weak and hollow and he hates himself. "I'm sorry," he breathes on an exhale, suddenly exhausted with the flood of emotion. He walks to the window and leans his forehead against the cold glass. It fogs under his breath, and perhaps that is why the street below is so blurry.
After all, it is not Sherlock who has killed his sister. It is not his fault.
Jesus, and John had almost hit him. Like a wounded animal, striking out at the nearest target. John, who likes to think of himself as a protector and a healer. He holds indisputable power over the genie. He is, whether acknowledged or not, the Master in this farcical fairytale relationship, and he knows that is why Sherlock cringed away rather than fighting back.
And really, that hardly makes him any better than Moriarty was, does it? With a word, or a gesture, or probably even a thought, John can banish Sherlock back to the lamp. Can make him... do things. Can utterly control him. And look what he's done.
When he turns around, Sherlock has moved to the other side of the desk, and at that defensive maneuver, John is filled with self-contempt. "I'm sorry," he says again, holding his hands away from his sides, palms up, fingers outstretched, to demonstrate that he's not going to hit.
Sherlock gives a little nod and seems to relax a bit. "I made you angry," he states.
John snorts, and feels a little of the weight and darkness lift from him.
"Are you better now?" Sherlock asks. He sculpts his face into mordancy and raises a sardonic eyebrow, as if chastising John for his base lack of control; but pulls his coat closed over his chest, as if to add another layer of armor.
John shrugs and rolls his head to the side, neck popping loudly. "Yes. No. I don't know, Sherlock. I mean. No! Harry's dead, and-" he doesn't have anywhere to go with that and just lets it fade, thin and drifting, absorbed into the tension of the flat. The silence stretches, brittle and fraught.
John words stumble, slow and muted, over the uneven percussion of his heart. "If it's just because of your lamp. If that's why - Then it's because I wanted you here. With your... stupid pants and your... dumb eyes. And the dancing, for god's sake. And I. Because I was lonely and pathetic. If that's why she died..." John just stops, and stares at the floor between his feet, face flaming, and hands constantly cycling into fists.
Sherlock moves silently to him on bare feet, and tentatively guides him back to the sofa. "Don't be like this, John I know it... I know you..." he stutters to a halt, and sinks down beside John; his hands knead his own thighs in a distressed fashion. "While I fear I may have inadvertently brought this upon you..."
John shakes his head, once, sharply. "Don't." It can't be, because Sherlock is the best thing, perhaps, that's ever happened to him. And Harry's life cannot, cannot be the price he has to pay for that. "What if I... Could a wish bring her back?" he asks slowly.
Sherlock's eyebrows come together, and his mouth turns down in clear denial.
And John knows the answer to this. They've even talked about it. It's impossible. And furthermore, he is aware he probably wouldn't have chosen it anyway; he shamefully tucks that last secret, ugly thought far into the back of his mind. Because making any wish means he would lose Sherlock. And if it ever came to a choice between Sherlock and Harry... . He doesn't want to damn himself by thinking of it.
Sherlock watches him silently for a moment, lips parted to speak, but decides to hold back his comment. The air is thick with quiet turmoil. Dazed and lost, John stares determinedly into Sherlock's eyes, swallowed in his pupils. If only he could stay here, drink in solace and affection.
But he is likely projecting that, he tells himself sourly. Seeing what he wants to see, no more. Sherlock confirms that when he next opens his mouth.
He leaps to his feet in a flurry of coattails and stalks a few short arcs around the room before stopping and bouncing frenetically on his toes, hands fidgeting with the flaps over his pockets. "John," he says. "We should not tarry. We need to figure out if it's Moriarty. (How can it possibly be Moriarty?) Did he kill your sister? Perhaps the body will tell us-"
John cuts him off with a sharp twitch of his shoulder. "Stop," he says. But it's weary rather than furious. He stares at the tiny silver box on the coffee table, winking cheerily in the firelight. The tumbled pile of ancient clothes, shoes and gleaming box of powdered lead remain where Sherlock dumped them, eons ago, before the phone call. John feels a sudden, sharp sensation of guilt. This collection represents a clear and menacing taunt: the fusty outfit that Sherlock had worn on the fateful day of his entrapment in the lamp, the sneering reminder of the lead that Sherlock thought had killed Moriarty.
John is reeling from the news about his sister, and has every right to be, but he recognizes that it doesn't give him leave to blame or abuse Sherlock for being engrossed with his missing lamp. The lamp is only the manifestation of a greater loss: security, stability and freedom inasmuch as he can have it. His calamity is potentially as great as, if not quite parallel to, losing a sister. Possibly worse, really, if he considers the ramifications of being snatched and enslaved again.
Sherlock follows his gaze, and his face twists and darkens. Quick as a snake, he bends, his arm flashes out, and the whole ensemble goes flying to the side, landing haphazardly on the floor halfway across the room. The little silver box clatters and remains stubbornly closed.
"Let's go." Sherlock pulls John off the sofa. He marches him the few steps to the door and begins to stuff him into his coat. "Let's go see your sister."
And John lets himself be steered out the door and thence into a cab, when summoned, only coming out of his little trance when Sherlock brusquely asks him for the address given to him by the D.I. from the Met.
"Nine Prescot Street." John glances at long, dirty feet sprawled on the nasty floormat of the cab, and is bemused. His gaze travels up to his companion's face.
Sherlock looks distinctly roughed up. Bruises show stark on his forehead and jaw, and slow-oozing blood is forming a scab that's too big for the cut on his temple. His lower lip is split and swollen and his hair is wildly tousled, still anomalously scattered with flashing little jewels. His coat is buttoned to the chin, scarf snugly wrapped around his neck. Bracelets rattle under the cuffs, but below that are naked calves and bare feet darkly streaked with grime and blood.
"You're barefoot," John points out, stupidly.
"Yes," Sherlock drawls, sarcastic. "Lost my slippers in the fight."
John knows better than to ask why Sherlock hasn't dressed himself in the clothes left in exchange for the lamp. "But. Why didn't you change in the flat? Into clothes from the lamp-" He waves a vague hand to indicate magic.
Sherlock makes a frustrated noise. "John, you're not thinking. I know you're upset, and your brain isn't working as optimally as it can, even given its natural limitations. But surely you realize that I can't get to the lamp. This is it. Nothing else from the lamp. If I go, if I access it... I'm trapped. The lamp has a new owner: and it's not you. I'm only here with you now because I was elsewhere at the time they took it." His hand twitches and his mobile mouth contorts in frustration. "I could use a smoke," he grumbles. But of course no long filter appears between his nervous fingers.
John looks at the genie, nude under the coat save for some jewelry and a pair of sheer trousers. "We'll find an Oxfam," he says, looking foolishly around as if one will be on the next corner, and open at 2am.
Sherlock purses his lips and pyramids his fingers; he gazes dismissively through the window. "Not important right now, John."
John draws in a breath to argue that it is important. He's quite sure there's a rule against being barefoot and half-naked in a morgue. But... his mind touches on Harry, cooling and still and dead... and he figures they'll be allowed in no matter how they're dressed.
Instead, he sits quietly, and the window reflects back his memories of Harry.
Although she had been truly awful tonight, and honestly, had been for many years, the thoughts flooding his head present her other side. The teasing, laughing older sister she had been: clumsily patching him up when he was hurt, pouring milk for his cereal, bravely standing next to him in front of their raging father.
He remembers an incident in his early teens, one of the first dates he'd ever had. He'd biked with the girl to the discount movies (he'd picked Indiana Jones) and they ate hot dogs in the lobby. John thought it had been fantastic. But Sammy Jo, heartless with the casual acid of adolescent girls, spent the following week laughing to everyone at school about the pathetic excursion, disparaging both his wealth and his taste. John was mortified. Harriet tracked Sammie down and although she never told John exactly what had happened, Sammie became abruptly and mysteriously mum after that, denying that she ever said any such thing. John's dating life had slowly improved.
And that relationship with his sister - two neglected kids, fighting for each other - that had gone both ways. John got in plenty of scraps for Harry as well, defending her right to go out with whatever sex she chose, even though slut, freak and lesbo were among the nicer names she got called.
Even when her life began to unravel under the poison of liquor, John still loved her. They didn't say it, didn't show it - there were no hugs or sentimental words - but this imperfect familial relationship was all they had in the world, and John was warmly happy when Harry settled down with Clara.
Alcohol is a demon, however, and Harry was losing this one battle, out of all those her bellicose nature hurtled her into. It made John so angry: angry and helpless. He could hardly bear to be around her anymore, witnessing Imposter Harry - Drunk Harry - take over his sassy, clever sister's life.
But there was never anything he could do to stop that, and it had been a relief to go to Afghanistan and stop trying. He'd avoided her as much as possible since then, her toxic presence was steel wool on the wounded spirit with which he'd returned from battle.
They enter through the A&E, the only entry open at this hour, and Sherlock's attire is not drastically dissimilar to anyone else's there, dressed as they are in pajamas, or night club clothes, or jackets painted in blood or vomit. A child moans, clutching a pillow to her belly, white-faced and scared, and her parents hover. She is quickly escorted back, which is good, John considers, as she's probably well on the way to a burst appendix. She is barefoot too, he notices.
When John gives his name to the harried nurse at reception, a slight little man is beckoned over. He solemnly shakes John's hand.
"Dimmock," he introduces himself. "Detective Inspector in Homicide."
"Dr. John Watson," John replies, feeling detached and surreal in the familiar surroundings of Barts. "And this is Sherlock..." he doesn't know how to finish the introduction, so lets it trail off. He thinks of the bare feet. "He's with me..." To provide emotional backup, is what he means, but he can't choke that out. Can't admit that he needs it. Also, he isn't entirely sure if that's why Sherlock is here: curiosity, yes, and the need to put together pieces of a puzzle. But something as mundane and human as comfort, John's not so sure.
Dimmock is small, giving the appearance of a child in adult's clothing. His face is smooth and bland, although his eyes are sympathetic, and John wonders how often this scenario plays out in his work week. He offers to shake Sherlock's hand as well, but Sherlock just stares intently at him, eyes roaming from head to toe, and then turns his attention back to the waiting room. Dimmock looks briefly disconcerted, but indicates that John should follow him. "This way, please."
He doesn't offer platitudes, and John doesn't know if he's grateful or miffed. He's done the same thing, of course: being a doctor means that there are times when you have to break bad news to family, and it's an art that Dimmock hasn't mastered. John walks down the hall as if the very air were viscous, and he has to push through it for each step. Sherlock is soundless beside him, and John feels the brush of an arm against his own, brief and noncommittal. He decides to interpret it as reassurance.
They know where the morgue is, of course, It's been not quite two days since they've been there. The young woman from the other day is there as well. Molly, was it? She looks wrinkled and tired, as if a long shift had suddenly expanded exponentially. Her gaze skips over Dimmock and John and latches onto Sherlock. "Oh," she squeaks, surprised. "Hello. It's you again!" Sherlock stares at her, expressionless, and she flushes to the roots of her mousy hair. "Ah. Yes. Why-?" She finally notices John, and then looks at Dimmock as well, and John can see pieces falling into place in her head. "Oh. Oh! Wait- are you?" Her fingers over her mouth, she just waits, staring at Sherlock with very wide eyes.
"John is here to identify his sister," Sherlock says impatiently, when no one else answers quickly enough. "We were told she was murdered earlier this evening."
John makes a sound, he can't help himself, it escapes like a smaller version of the puff of air that comes out upon a physical blow. It hurts, it really does hurt, to hear those words. Sherlock tilts his head at him, seems confused. Not good? he telegraphs with a turned down corner to his mouth and a guilty cast to his eyes. John looks down, shifting his jaw back and forth. Bit not good, is the obvious response.
Sherlock steps closer, the hem of his coat swinging against John's legs. He says nothing more, just stands there, and John takes some comfort in the faint, brief contact.
Molly bites her lip at John for a moment, brown eyes swimming in sympathy, and then turns to the slab behind her. There is a black body bag on it, zipped shut, and she waits, hand on the zipper, looking at John. "Are you ready?" she asks, sweet and clumsy.
John straightens until he's in rigid military posture, hands stiff by his sides, head up and eyes straight ahead. He dips his head in an abbreviated nod and moves to stand across the table from her. Sherlock follows, close by his shoulder, and his presence is warm and solid. John consciously, silently, lets out all the air in his lungs as Molly pulls the zipper down, because he doesn't want any material there so that he cannot suddenly shout, or cry.
The edges of the bag part. It seems so slow, but the online function of his brain knows that is only his interpretation. Molly is not prolonging this. The black plastic opens like theater curtains, drawn back by the velvet ropes of Molly's small hands, and the face that is revealed...
… The face that is revealed is not what he was expected.
It is not Harry. Not Harry's blond hair, nor the nose she curses that is so similar to his own. This face is not lined with hard living, and is not defiantly clear of makeup. John rocks back on his heels, dizzied for a second, and he braces one hand on the cold metal of the table for support.
Sherlock scoffs. "That is not Harry Watson," he says immediately. "It is her girlfriend Melissa."